What rendering tricks might RSX employ?

[gosh]

The second-last EGM, I believe, had that as a rumour (Q-Mann). There are other sources too, but I'm tired and thus will go to sleep.

the second last EGM people didnt know what was in the PS3 how can they move. I have egm of april may and june and nowhere did it mention developers are moving from Xbox 360 to PS3

 

[ralexand]

This is alittle off topic but I was reading this interview with the cell developer and came across this quote?

Jan-Bart: Yes, we're really impressed with it. The Cell is amazingly powerful, and the graphics CPU [the RSX, co-developed with Nvidia] in there... it's actually hard to mimic it on our development PCs, we have to see it on the PS3 hardware itself. It's really nice to be working with such powerful hardware.

Do some developers have the final chip? I thought the design wasn't complete.

http://ps3.ign.com/articles/616/616591p1.html

 

[jvd]

I hate that quote. Everytime i read it i come up with a new meaning . The two that stick out is either they have the cell and not the rsx so they can't see the games running on it .


Or they don't have either and they can't see the games running on it though they are told they are extremely powerfull .


I dunno . Its a wierd quote the way it goes

 

[Titanio]

This is alittle off topic but I was reading this interview with the cell developer and came across this quote?

Jan-Bart: Yes, we're really impressed with it. The Cell is amazingly powerful, and the graphics CPU [the RSX, co-developed with Nvidia] in there... it's actually hard to mimic it on our development PCs, we have to see it on the PS3 hardware itself. It's really nice to be working with such powerful hardware.

Do some developers have the final chip? I thought the design wasn't complete.

http://ps3.ign.com/articles/616/616591p1.html

I take from that that they have Cell hardware but not RSX (substitute gpu(s) instead).

 

[ralexand]

This is alittle off topic but I was reading this interview with the cell developer and came across this quote?

Jan-Bart: Yes, we're really impressed with it. The Cell is amazingly powerful, and the graphics CPU [the RSX, co-developed with Nvidia] in there... it's actually hard to mimic it on our development PCs, we have to see it on the PS3 hardware itself. It's really nice to be working with such powerful hardware.

Do some developers have the final chip? I thought the design wasn't complete.

http://ps3.ign.com/articles/616/616591p1.html

I take from that that they have Cell hardware but not RSX (substitute gpu(s) instead).

So he's saying that its hard to mimic the substitute gpu on their development PCs.

 

[Titanio]

This is alittle off topic but I was reading this interview with the cell developer and came across this quote?

Jan-Bart: Yes, we're really impressed with it. The Cell is amazingly powerful, and the graphics CPU [the RSX, co-developed with Nvidia] in there... it's actually hard to mimic it on our development PCs, we have to see it on the PS3 hardware itself. It's really nice to be working with such powerful hardware.

Do some developers have the final chip? I thought the design wasn't complete.

http://ps3.ign.com/articles/616/616591p1.html

I take from that that they have Cell hardware but not RSX (substitute gpu(s) instead).

So he's saying that its hard to mimic the substitute gpu on their development PCs.

Hard to mimic RSX. Whether he just means in terms of raw power or specific features or otherwise I don't know.

 

[Acert93]

With all total due respect Titanio you and I know that Chatani was specific and know that he the CTO wasn't misinformed. Laa-Yosh it there may be alot of more things that you may find a hard time believing. I think if you take what Phil also said we can get a better understanding.

On this issue, the quote you are using actually underminds your claim that the "Getaway Tech Demo" was 'all CELL'. Read you quote carefully (I have removed your bold and added an underline):

Eurogamer: Was most of what we saw really just showing off the graphics capabilities - stretching the RSX graphics part rather than the Cell chip? The assumption is that Cell is there for complex physics and AI...

Phil Harrison: You're right; obviously Cell allows you to do complex collisions, physics, dynamics, simulations, all of those things. Though, the Getaway demo was a good example of how you can have a living city brought to life as a result. Although it was pretty graphics, most of that power was actually Cell-based.

He does not say "all"--but "most".

This quote does not arrive at the conclusion you are trying to prove, namely that the, "Getaway Tech Demo" was 100% CELL. Actually, if we want to nit pick, this is a confirmation that it was not 100% CELL.

So Laa-Yosh could be right (or wrong) but taking a dig at him was not really called for. If Phil wont say it is 100% CELL, who are we to say what parts were and were not?

Since Sony was not running on final HW it is best to leave all the conjecture until we see real software running on finalized HW. Taking quotes about what was, and was not, done on an Alpha-kit and what was/was not in that alpha-kit is kind of pointless. Only Sony knows what media was created on what platform and the actual state of that media (real time, pre-rendered, etc). And so far they have not been entirely open about discussing exactly what was in each machine or each demo. Hints and suggestions, but nother near disclosure. Hanging on every word from Sony PR men is about as useful as hanging on evey word Allard or a MS PR rep speaks--i.e. take it with a grain of salt.

Let the real software on the real hardware do the talking. Until then it is the job of PR men to make a big splash while minimizing that of their competition.

 

[Deepak]

.....yet graphical games like RE4 look on par with the best looking xbox games,and better than almost all PS2 games,only GT4,SH4 and GOW look realy on par...

Err, I guess you meant SH3. Even though MGS3 impresses me most.

 

[marconelly!]

it was strongly hinted at for a long time and the lack of hardrive is what killed it . From how i understand it they were waiting on sony to confirm the hardrive and the word they got was no and the scrapped before e3.

You only answered my question with more hearsay. Who said, and where, that the game was being planned for PS3, and then cancelled due to lack of standard harddrive? That, if true, would invalidate the rumor that Xbox 360 devs were told to develop games as if the harddrive was not packed in standard with the console (which would basically mean the game would have to work even if the user would de-attach the HDD and borrow it to someone, etc.)

 

[Fafalada]

who are we to say what parts were and were not?

It's more a common sense thing then anything else.
Writting an efficient software polygon renderer(with texturing support and all) seems like an awfully time consuming thing to do just for the purposes of a single tech demo.

Though I wouldn't absolutely rule it out either - people did write simple realtime raytracers on VU1, and that had about zero practical application as well...

 

[Shifty Geezer]

During the evaluation of a Cell as a graphics engine, something that almost certainly happened if Sony were considering it's use as such, graphics rasterizing would have had to have been implemented. So a software renderer on Cell might well exist and could produce the Getaway visuals. As for 'Most of the power' is Cell, a video output of some sort would have been needed, which might do something or other (?).

It's not totally outside the realm of possibility that these are Cell renders. They're not the most poly intensive visuals, the buldings looking fairly flat IMO. (rechecks video). Tell a lie, that's pretty detailed. Plus the shading on cars, and such.

Who wrote this demo? Where are they? Why aren't they on this board telling us what was Cell powered and what wasn't?

 

[London Geezer]

It's not totally outside the realm of possibility that these are Cell renders. They're not the most poly intensive visuals, the buldings looking fairly flat IMO. (rechecks video). Tell a lie, that's pretty detailed. Plus the shading on cars, and such.

Who wrote this demo? Where are they? Why aren't they on this board telling us what was Cell powered and what wasn't?

Well the buildings were relatively low-poly, they were just big polys with textures slapped on them.

IF (BIG IF) it was all done only by Cell, the nice thing about the demo was that it seemed to run fine with HDR, doing all the texturing and filtering, with a few cars going around, a few people. Not the highest detailed things seen around, but if it was all done by Cell, it's quite impressive.

It's the HDR and texture filtering that bug me, that's something i'd have thought could only be handled by the GPU at decent speeds.

 

[Titanio]

On a related note, to respond to a post jvd made in another, now locked thread, in which we were discussing Cell and postprocessing (hope he won't mind me crossposting it here):

I dunno you'd have to put hte image some where, I don't think the cell has enough cache in it to hold a 1080p or a 720p image with fp 16 in it ?

The entire image doesn't have to be there at once, I don't think..

Does hdr get applied after or before the textures ? This would be a big thing as if its after the textures I don't see how it can be done (though i'm not ap rogramer ) you'd have to send a completed image with textures to the cell ? I don't see it happening .

I'd appreciate clarification from anyone who might know. But if Cell can act as seamlessly as a co-processor to the GPU as is being suggested, I'm not sure why whatever data is needed can't be thrown out to the CPU instead of to whatever logic on the GPU would otherwise perform the operation.

Well i dunno about alot of headroom. If you want next gen a.i and physics its going to take alot of performance away from a next gen hardware .

Obviously, one can never have enough power. There's always ways to soak it up. But relative to competing systems there is headroom there, IMO.

Anyway i brought up some reasons why i don't think we will see it done. I could be wrong though.

As could I. Some discussion of how Cell can and can't work with RSX, from those who would know! - would be appreciated. Although the obvious people who'd know - Sony and NVidia - do say HDR and postprocessing can be done on Cell (and more besides)...but what do "independents" think..?

But as i said if it was to save badnwidth they wouldn't have wasted transitors putting the hardware in the rsx for it

Because they don't want to force people to use Cell to do those things, if they don't want to have graphics anywhere but on the GPU? It's an option..a possible creative solution depending on your game's needs. Your game may be fine with 128-bit HDR off RSX, you know

 

[ralexand]

Hard to mimic RSX. Whether he just means in terms of raw power or specific features or otherwise I don't know.

My question though is how would he know unless he has an RSX chip. He's giving a very practical real-word example here about his development environment. He's not talking theoretical performance.

 

[zidane1strife]

Hmmm, I'll give my 2 cents.

From what I've seen, maybe it's my bias or the art design that blinds me or something else, but it seems that from many of the demos(realtime or basically confirmed realtime stuff like deano's game, and the nvguy's demos at the ps3 conference), there is barely anything that compares from what's been shown till now on the x360 side, only the ruby demo stands out as having similar quality.

After seeing the gears of wars vid, maybe it's because it was not high quality, it's left me a bit underwhelmed. If the IQ of the realtime demos can be maintained in the final product, and in in-game situations, it'd mean, IMHO ken was right. Now question is what's it that's bestowing such miraculous visuals to such miraculous demos in this here miracle machine? The nvguy's demos was one of those which impressed, what's the secret sauce?

 

[Titanio]

Hard to mimic RSX. Whether he just means in terms of raw power or specific features or otherwise I don't know.

My question though is how would he know unless he has an RSX chip. He's giving a very practical real-word example here about his development environment. He's not talking theoretical performance.

How does anyone know final hardware will be different without actually having it? They've a good idea on paper of what's coming. Same as MS knows their final hardware will be X times more powerful or have certain new features. It's all theoretical until they actually have the hardware, of course, but that won't stop them making public statements or suggestions about the relative merits of final hardware vs what they currently have.

 

[Shifty Geezer]

If the IQ of the realtime demos can be maintained in the final product, and in in-game situations, it'd mean, IMHO ken was right.

Except we haven't seen XB360's amazing GPU in operation. All those demos are running on older hardware, not the Xenos

 

[mckmas8808]

Now question is what's it that's bestowing such miraculous visuals to such miraculous demos in this here miracle machine? The nvguy's demos was one of those which impressed, what's the secret sauce

Now that’s a really good question. You go to other forums and people say that everything that Sony showed was pre-rendered except for Unreal and Fight Night. There has got to be something thats is giving it a different look.

Now before I pose the question please don't jump me for quoting what Ken said. I honestly don't know if its PR or the truth. Ken said this...

Prior to PS3, real-time rendered 3D graphics might have looked real, but they weren't actually calculated in a fully 3D environment. But that was OK for screen resolutions up until now. Even as of the current time, most of the games for the Xbox 360 use that kind of 3D. However, we want to realize fully calculated 3D graphics in fully 3D environments. In order to do that, we need to share the data between the CPU and GPU as much as possible. That's why we adopted this architecture. We want to make all the floating-point calculations including their rounded numbers the same, and we've been able to make it almost identical. So as a result, the CPU and GPU can use their calculated figures bidirectionally.

This seems similar to what he said about the 3DO compared to the PSone. He said the PSone did real 3D calculations while the 3DO did not. Now he is saying something close to the same about X360.

Also important he said that the CPU and GPU can use their calculated figures bidirectionally. This is a huge benefit imho. Especially with the CELL's high floating point calculation ability. Can someone please explain further?

 

[pc999]

Also important he said that the CPU and GPU can use their calculated figures bidirectionally. This is a huge benefit imho. Especially with the CELL's high floating point calculation ability. Can someone please explain further?

XB360 can do that too, I think.

 

[zidane1strife]

If the IQ of the realtime demos can be maintained in the final product, and in in-game situations, it'd mean, IMHO ken was right.

Except we haven't seen XB360's amazing GPU in operation. All those demos are running on older hardware, not the Xenos

The IQ of the ps3 demos seems to me to be nigh-perfect, only defect I saw where minor shimmering on some scenes of the FFVII demo, if the heavenly sword/ FFVII/nvguy/etc realtime(or nigh-realtime as in deano's) demos are any indication of final product IQ than any improvement on that will, IMHO be negligible. Thus if they can achieve comparable IQ to x360(negligible improvements are only possible on nigh-perfect IQ, IMHO) while dedicating more h/w towards features/shading power their move was the right one. Only problem I'd see is if the IQ is lower than that which was showcased, in which case MS choice could provide substantially noticeable results to casuals, and it'd prove them right IMHO.